Based on the examination and evaluation of some successful international experiences (including the Chilean experience), here is a synthetic proposal about the basic principles on which a modern system of administration of Social Policy in Argentina should rest, an area where annually the national government allocates approximately US $ 17,000 million, although with very few results and with low percentages of effectiveness in the actions and program undertaken.
The purpose of this proposal is to contribute to banishing the traditional and anachronistic political-administrative culture that has been in force in our country to attend to this vital area of the State, which was based continuously, and practically for 50 years, in a multiplicity of unconnected, unsystematic programs, actions and ventures, without transparency in the management of public resources, with the absence of mechanisms for selection and efficiency in the destination of funds, most of the times conditioned to a personalized institutional and therefore not participatory, absent from management controls, and without worrying about the degree of compliance in the effectiveness of the assistance and the arrival at the target population that was supposedly originally intended to serve.
The proposed Social Policy Administration model foresees, in the first instance, its gradual application in all those non-universal national programs (focused or focusable) that are carried out with coverage throughout the national territory, and should also include those social programs focused that correspond to the provincial and municipal jurisdictions that exist in the interior of the country, always keeping in mind as an indispensable condition that they are explicitly oriented towards overcoming or mitigating acute patterns of poverty, marginality, chronic unemployment or unfavorable socio-economic conditions of sectors or regions that are in inferior conditions or lack equal opportunities, with respect to sectors or regions with higher income levels.
In order to fully grasp the main features of this model of Social Policy Administration, it is convenient to summarize in 10 general principles, the synthesis of its content and scope:
1. Systemic character:
The Social Policy management model starts from the operational existence and duly backed by the political authority, of a Planning and Coordination structure of all existing programs or to be created in the field of Social Policy, to avoid shortcomings, overlaps, contradictions or conflicts between them.
It is about rescuing the principle of unity that must prevail in all this field of State action, leaving aside the anarchic model of design and execution of isolated projects that do not respond to a joint vision in the framework of objectives, policies and strategies defined for the social area by its highest authorities.
2. Centralization of design and management, but decentralization of execution:
It seeks to centralize at the national level everything related to the establishment of objectives, policies and strategies, as well as planning and management control tasks, but decentralizing to lower levels of the state (provincial and municipal), as well as at the level of NGOs, the execution of the specific actions and the arrival and attention to the objective sectors that are intended to be supported, due to their greater proximity, and therefore greater knowledge of them.
3. Regulation and regulatory framework in charge of the state:
Although in the field of Economic Policy it has been feasible to privatize large areas that have traditionally been in charge of the Public Sector and reorient them towards the market, it is nevertheless the non-delegable power of the State, everything related to Social Policy.
However, there may be a transfer to certain non-state institutions of society (NGOs) regarding the execution of certain programs and projects, for reasons of proximity, operation and greater knowledge of the target sectors in question..
4. Institutionalization of the system:
It is about depersonalizing social policies and programs, to ensure not only continuity and permanence over time but also provide them with an institutional insertion within the structures of the State and Society.
Argentina is characterized by having in the public sphere countless cases of lack of institutionality in programs, projects, actions, policies, activities, all of which in most cases come and go with the official who gave them life.
This temporary precariousness and institutional fragility threatens the achievement of longer-term objectives. Social policies are not for officials. Nor from the political parties to which they belong. They are a matter of state.
5. Efficiency in the use of resources:
It means optimizing from the economic-financial point of view, the use of resources destined to Social Programs, since the moment that they come from taxes (or external debt from international organizations that will be paid in the future with taxes), they are contributed by the community as a whole, and its application implies an alternative sacrifice in terms of social opportunity costs, which is borne by society as a whole.
The economic cost of a peso or dollar destined to finance a social policy program or project is given by everything that the State stops doing alternatively (infrastructure works, for example, or reduction of existing taxes to reactivate production and employment in the private sector of the economy).
6. Efficacy in achieving the objectives:
The effectiveness of the programs must be permanently evaluated not only in economic terms (optimal use of resources and maximization of the rate of social benefit) but also in terms of effectiveness (quantified) in achieving the objectives pursued (for example, percentage of the target population that was intended to be attended and that was effectively assisted by the program in question).
7. Precise definition of the target sectors to attend:
The effectiveness of the programs requires as an indispensable condition a precise definition, conceptualization, justification and quantification of the objective sector to be assisted by each program (estimation of the potential and actual demand), that is, to focus precisely on the project in terms of recipients, including its geographical location, and the distribution of quantitative goals during a time schedule, during the life of the program or project.
8. Transparency in the system:
The aim is to systematize information for its subsequent publication and dissemination, and thus make the programs known as widely as possible, not only in terms of their characteristics, procedures, resources used, sources of financing, operating costs, target target sectors, criteria for choosing beneficiaries, and scope, but also communication to society about the achievement of their objectives and the management of public resources for them.
It is not a matter of publishing data for electoral marketing purposes in view of the upcoming elections (it is common to find that social programs are preferably used with this small objective of party politics).
It is about publishing information to give transparency to the management of public funds, and so that society as a whole can judge on the real effectiveness, efficiency, rationality and honesty in the execution of these programs.
9. Community participation:
The Social Policy Administration reaches its legitimacy to the extent that it contemplates and expresses the real needs of the population and this is achieved only if there are mechanisms for the participation of civil society to capture their points of view and opinions regarding design, coverage, and location of Social Programs, as well as during the corresponding process of feed-back (feedback, and update) thereof.
10. Management control:
Todo el sistema de Administración de la Política Social debe ir acompañado de un Control de Gestión institucionalizado, el que no debe limitarse a los aspectos presupuestarios, contables y administrativos que exige la Contabilidad Pública, sino además de ellos, debe avanzar primordialmente en la implementación de mecanismos y sistemas que permitan implementar un control de gestión de la eficiencia y eficacia que se vaya alcanzando en cada Programa, para permitir la postevaluación de la performance que tuvieron los Programas y Proyectos, para su perfeccionamiento y reorientación de los mismos en los años subsiguientes.
